PHP str_replace() - Replace with space alternative?

Question

I came across a need today to use str_replace() to replace all hyphens in a string with spaces. Easy enough:

$string = "Some-test-string";
$string = str_replace('-', ' ', $string);

The thing is, using ' ' (string with empty space) in the "replacement" part of str_replace() just feels so dirty. Also seems brittle... Looks ugly too.

Is there no better option? I tried using a regex pattern in the "replacement" section but that didn't work, it came out literal.

Ideally, something like this would be great if possible:

$string = "Some-test-string";
$string = str_replace('-', '/\s/', $string);

Thanks!

Edited: Replaced all preg_replace() calls with str_replace() per suggestion.

You could use the hex value for space: preg_replace("/[-]+/", "\x20", $string);, but I don't know if that makes it cleaner — Abdullah Bakhsh
– Abdullah Bakhsh, Commented Jun 20, 2016 at 0:59
You would be better off with str_replace for this. I would not worry about it looking brittle or ugly so long as it works and is easily understood. I would use ' ' instead of " ". — John Fawcett
– John Fawcett, Commented Jun 20, 2016 at 1:09
Abdullah Bakhsh - That replaces with a literal \x20.. I should clarify that I want the space in the string... just trying to find an alternative way to represent the replacement in the preg_match() call. — mbbentz
– mbbentz, Commented Jun 20, 2016 at 1:13
Thanks John Fawcett - A few minutes after I posted this, I had changed it to str_replace because I realized the pattern was not advanced enough to require preg_match()... I'll update my question to reflect that! — mbbentz
– mbbentz, Commented Jun 20, 2016 at 1:14
Well \s is a space, tab, or new line, there's no way for PHP to know which character you are expecting there (or no way that I know of). The ' ' should be fine, you could input the HTML entity if this is for a browser,  , or  . — chris85
– chris85, Commented Jun 20, 2016 at 1:31

Shira · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-20 01:10:00Z

1

I see no reason to use regular expressions in this case. Why not use a simpler function, e.g. strtr()?

$string = "Some-test-string";
$string = strtr($string, '-', ' ');

answered Jun 20, 2016 at 1:10

Shira

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1 Comment

mbbentz Over a year ago

Thanks ShiraNai7 - I had already switched out to using str_replace() once I realized that that regex pattern was too simple to require preg_replace(). I have updated my question to reflect that.

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